Week in Review

Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State when terrorists killed four Americans in Benghazi. Ambassador Stevens had requested additional security as the safety of Westerners in Benghazi was tenuous. The British had already left after an attempt on their ambassador’s life. But Secretary Clinton denied Ambassador Stevens’ request. For it didn’t look good politically.

All during the 2012 campaign the Democrats repeated over and over how Osama bin Laden was dead. And General Motors was alive. Not only that al Qaeda was on the ropes. Because President Obama defeated them. Making them an empty shell of what they were when President Bush was president. This is why we needed to reelect President Obama. Because only he could defeat al Qaeda. And did. After winning the War on Terror it just wouldn’t look good to be beefing up security to defend against a resurgent al Qaeda. Because that would go against the narrative that President Obama defeated al Qaeda. So Ambassador Stevens and the Americans in Benghazi were left to fend for themselves so they wouldn’t reflect adversely on the president’s reelection campaign. And then came 9/11/2012.

Four Americans died so as not to be a political inconvenience to President Obama. And Secretary Clinton let that happen. For their safety was her responsibility. And it was no secret that Benghazi was not a safe place. Which is why the British left. When Secretary Clinton finally appeared before Congress to explain how four Americans died under her watch she got indignant and simply yelled “what difference does it make” to their questions. Refusing to answer them. Angry and annoyed that these Republicans even dared to ask her these questions. Why wasn’t security beefed up? Why didn’t we send help when they were under attack? Why did she lie about it being a spontaneous reaction to a YouTube video? Who edited the talking points given to Ambassador Rice? She did not like these questions. And she made her resentment clear. Funny when the shoe is on the other foot (see Documents show Bill Clinton’s close dealings with Richard Nixon on Russia, foreign affairs by Michael R. Blood, The Associated Press, posted 2/13/2013 on The Vancouver Sun).

Richard Nixon, in the final months of his life, quietly advised President Bill Clinton on navigating the post-Cold War world, even offering to serve as a conduit for messages to Russian President Boris Yeltsin and other government officials, newly declassified documents show.

Memos and other records show Nixon’s behind-the-scenes relations with the Clinton White House. The documents are part of an exhibit opening Friday at the Nixon Presidential Library, marking the centennial of his birth.

Clinton has talked often of his gratitude to Nixon for his advice on foreign affairs, particularly Russia. In a video that will be part of the exhibit, Clinton recalls receiving a letter from the 37th president shortly before his death on April 22, 1994, at a time when Clinton was assessing U.S. relations “in a world growing ever more interdependent and yet ungovernable.”

What really makes this remarkable and relevant to Hillary Clinton is this.

Clinton in his younger days was no fan of Nixon — as a college student in the 1960s, he opposed escalation of the Vietnam War. And his wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, was a young lawyer advising a House committee when she helped draw up impeachment papers against Nixon.

Hillary Clinton helped draw up the impeachment papers against President Nixon which led to his resignation. For Watergate. Which amounted to a burglary. And some wire-tapping. There was no loss of life. President Nixon’s crime, the cover-up, didn’t kill four Americans. Yet Hillary Clinton helped to destroy President Nixon. Even though he was a good president when it came to foreign policy. At least, according to Hillary Clinton’s husband. President Clinton. But when she’s on the hot seat she responds with righteous indignation. Even though her actions, or her lack of action, caused the death of four Americans.

So what can we learn from this? President Nixon was a good president that put his country first. Even helping the man whose wife destroyed his career. President Clinton was not as good a president as President Nixon was. And Hilary Clinton ruined a good president who didn’t do anything as bad as she did. Allowing four Americans to die on her watch. Because she put politics first. Instead of her country. Just as she did when she helped to destroy President Nixon.

Week in Review

Hillary Clinton got indignant during her Benghazi testimony. She shouted, “What different does it make?!?” when asked about one of the greatest foreign policy failures in U.S. history. Why did the Obama administration mislead the American people just before a presidential election? “What different does it make?!?”

Well, it makes a whole lot of difference. Especially if politics were the driving factor for security considerations in Benghazi. And with “al Qaeda is on the ropes” being a main campaign theme it would appear that politics were the driving factor for security considerations in Benghazi. For a president claiming victory in the War on Terror could not have a resurgent al Qaeda in Libya. Especially when al Qaeda was using the very weapons the Obama administration gave to the opposition to topple Muammar Gaddafi from power. An opposition no one really knew then. But we did know it had an al Qaeda element. Who hated Muammar Gaddafi. For he became a U.S. ally in the War on Terror following the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

So this is ‘what difference it makes’. Political considerations led to a resurgent al Qaeda in Northern and Western Africa. Greatly destabilizing the region. Making the world a less safe place. And to hide that fact until after the election the Obama administration seized onto that YouTube video that no one saw in Libya. To cover up their foreign policy mess. Benghazi is such a mess that everyone is now evacuating the city and leaving it to al Qaeda (see ‘Leave immediately’: Britons told to get out of Benghazi after threat from al-Qa’ida by Daniel Howden and Kim Sengupta posted 1/25/2013 on The Independent).

The Government has urged British nationals to leave Libya’s second city, Benghazi, in response to a “specific threat to Westerners” from terror groups operating in North Africa.

Defence sources confirmed the warning is linked to the activities of al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim). An offshoot of Aqim was responsible for last week’s hostage crisis at the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria in which 37 Westerners were killed, along with 29 Islamists…

Dutch and German citizens have also been advised to join the exodus, while Egypt has restricted movement across its border with Libya due to security concerns.

Intelligence reports from Egypt as well as intercepted communications from Burkina Faso and Algeria led to the warning being issued. Western interests, rather than explicitly British ones, were said to be the terrorists’ intended target. Governments across North and West Africa have been on heightened alert following last week’s hostage crisis in the Sahara…

The city is the business hub of eastern Libya and was the birthplace of the uprising that toppled Colonel Gaddafi. However, since the dictator’s death it has also been used as a base by several jihadist groups including Ansar al-Sharia, which is seen as the new face of al-Qa’ida in the wake of the Arab Spring. It is believed that individuals from Ansar al-Sharia remain in the city while the group has withdrawn…

Violence in Benghazi has targeted foreigners as well as Libyan officials in recent months, with assassinations, bombings and other attacks. As well as the 11 September assault on the US consulate, an Italian diplomat’s car was fired on by militants earlier this month. Rome has suspended consular activities in the city and evacuated staff.

Britain’s ambassador to Libya, Sir Dominic Asquith, narrowly escaped injury last June when his convoy in Benghazi was hit by rocket-propelled grenades, reinforcing concerns that the city’s police and government militia may have been infiltrated.

This week Sir Kim Darroch, David Cameron’s national security adviser, held talks in Tripoli with Libya’s Prime Minister, Ali Zidan, in which security was top of the agenda. French citizens, including doctors working at Benghazi hospitals, have left the city and the French cultural centre has been closed over concerns of retaliatory attacks following France’s military intervention in Mali. A few Britons and a handful of German and Dutch citizens remain in Benghazi, many of them acting as security contractors or aid workers.

The anti-Western attacks started before al Qaeda killed the US ambassador in Benghazi. So there was no question that al Qaeda was resurgent. And four Americans paid the ultimate price when politics trumped security needs.

So what difference does it make? It was the policies and politics that resulted in those four American deaths. And the resurgence of al Qaeda in the region. Because President Obama declared ‘mission accomplished’ during the presidential campaign. Saying it was reason to give him four more years. So if his ‘successful’ policies were reason enough to reelect the president then surely if those same policies were the cause of everything that went wrong in Benghazi they were reason enough NOT to reelect him. And they knew it. Hence the YouTube video.

The president didn’t win reelection by a large margin. Had the truth about Benghazi been known chances are he would have lost reelection. And this is why it makes a difference. For it matters when a president chooses politics over American lives.

Libya’s new leaders said they intend to make Islamic Sharia law the main source of legislation and will nullify any laws that contradict its tenets, giving the country a more Islamist character in the post-Moammar Gadhafi era…

However Libya is not headed down the same path as Saudi Arabia and Iran, which follow a stricter interpretation of Sharia — cutting off the hands of thieves, the heads of murderers and stoning adulterers to death. Those who drink alcohol are publicly flogged.

They won’t be like Iran? Yeah, right. This is exactly how things happened in Iran. When they overthrew their secular leader. Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavi. The Shah of Iran.

You cannot lump Saudi Arabia and Iran in the same category. Iran hates us and wants to kill us. Saudi Arabia is a friend and ally. Even though this brings a lot of hate onto the House of Saud. Both from within the kingdom. And without.

The one area where Islamic law is nearly universal is in personal status law — rules concerning marriage, divorce and inheritance. Sharia allows men to marry up to four women, without the approval of one another even without their knowledge. Men are also allowed to divorce their wives by proclamation.

Women have the right to ask for a divorce under any circumstances, without the man’s approval, but in such a case the woman foregoes rights to alimony. Islamic law also stipulates that married daughters receive half the inheritance that sons receive and insists that women have the right to a dowry upon marriage.

Christianity treats women a lot better than Islam. Yet liberals attack Christianity. And bend over backwards to explain, excuse and forgive the harsh treatment of women under Sharia law. Even though the liberals are the party of the feminists. Funny how that is.

Egypt got warm and cozy with Hamas. Threw open the border to Gaza. Even though Hamas is warm and cozy with Iran. Hates Israel. And has it in their charter to destroy Israel. Now it looks like Libya is moving more into the Iranian orbit. Just like Egypt. Humph. Anyone see this coming? When we all threw in with the Libyan rebels?

Libya going the way of Iran. Not good. For Libya. Israel. The Middle East. Or the United States.

Although young men protect their own neighborhoods, major institutions such as banks, ministries and historic sites remain relatively unprotected. A number of banks and commercial towers have been thoroughly looted. Law enforcement is left in the hands of rebel fighters, some of whom had never been to their country’s capital.

Young men continue to pillage military sites abandoned by Kadafi’s men, carting away huge stores of weapons, just as Iraqis hauled off guns and explosives later used to make car bombs and launch attacks on Iraqi and U.S.-led forces.

Stores of weapons in the hands of angry young men? Rarely does that end well. And rarely does lawlessness just spontaneously turn into lawfulness. Put the two together (angry young men with weapons and lawlessness) and what do you get? Woe to anyone that is identified as a loyalist.

Reports also have begun to surface of reprisal killings of suspected loyalists, although few accounts could be fully verified given the chaos and lack of communications in Tripoli…

More obvious right now is the visceral violence of rebel forces hammering away at residential neighborhoods known to be strongholds of Kadafi supporters.

Rebel fighters use artillery and antiaircraft guns in such districts, which include Abu Salim, Hadba and Salahadin. At one point this week, rebels were firing assault rifles into residential apartment blocks in Abu Salim, where they suspected a sniper was holed up.

Civil wars tend to be the cruelest of wars. And the bloodiest. They split up neighborhoods. And families. With vengeance often being the battle cry. For these aren’t soldiers on a distant battlefield who don’t know each other. This is far more personal. It’s typically someone you know killing someone you know. And what makes it especially cruel is that before the war these were people you called friends. Or family. This kind of killing unleashes an indescribable hatred. And searing anger. Hence the vengeance.

Members of the district council insisted that the men had taken up arms against the revolution and were being held pending trial. But they also said some of those arrested included people pulled out of their cars at checkpoints because they looked “suspicious,” often code for dark-skinned Libyans and others of sub-Saharan African descent…

Said one Tripoli taxi driver, “I have a fear that one day we’ll be like Iraqis, wishing for the days of Moammar Kadafi.”

As bad as Saddam Hussein was, at least he kept the peace. That’s the advantage of an oppressive dictatorship. People live in fear of the state. Not each other. And if you behave properly, the state might just leave you alone. As long as you’re not an intellectual. Can read. Or wear glasses. If you’re not a threat to state power, or a perceived threat, life can be good. All you have to do is to say nothing. Avoid eye contact. And never, ever complain. For if you thought things were bad, just wait until after you complain.

Typically in Civil Wars, the Winning Side often Unleashed a Bloody Purge on the Losing Side

Many people may not know this but the American Revolutionary War was part civil war. Those loyal to the Crown fought for the Crown. Against the Patriots. And the bloodiest fighting during the Revolution was between Loyalist and Patriot. Especially in the South. Where some unspeakable horrors took place.

Now typically in civil wars, the winning side often unleashed a bloody purge on the losing side. But not in America. At the end of the war there were no reprisals. No hangings. No persecutions. At least, not by those in power. Most of the Loyalists just left. They went to Canada. Or back to the UK. General Washington resigned from the army. And the elected civilian authority made the peace. Quite shocking. For few generals ever voluntarily give up near absolute power. And returned to their farm. He was the American Cincinnatus.

About a decade later, the French Revolution erupted. A more classical civil war. Far more bloody. With plenty of reprisals. And guillotining. The streets of Paris ran with blood. The Reign of Terror purged political enemies. Than the people who unleashed the Terror fell victims to it themselves. The fighting unleashed Napoleon Bonaparte onto Europe. And the Middle East. Made him a great general. Even impressed a composer by the name of Ludwig van Beethoven. A fan of republican government. Even dedicated his Third Symphony to him. And then Bonaparte made himself emperor. So the revolution to overthrow a king ultimately ended up with an emperor. Infuriating Beethoven so that he slashed the dedication page from his symphony.

Two revolutions that were part civil war. One atypical. The American. And one more typical. The French.

Winning the War was one Thing. Winning the Peace was Another.

At the time these were some pretty nasty wars. But they pale when compared to the American Civil War. Some 620,000 died. That’s a huge number. About 2% of the population then. To get an idea about how devastating 2% of the population is consider this. With today’s population that would equal some 6 million dead.

Winning the war was one thing. Winning the peace was another. The war was horrific. And a lot of Northerners wanted a hard peace. To make the South pay. But Abraham Lincoln wanted an easy peace. Near the end, shortly before Robert E. Lee’s surrender, Lincoln met with General Ulysses S. Grant, General William Tecumseh Sherman and Admiral David Dixon Porter. He discussed the easy peace he wanted. He said he did not want any retribution. Any trials. Any hangings. If the defeated Confederates would sign paroles promising to never pick up arms again against the United States, they could simply go home. He wanted to bring the South back into the Union. As quickly and as painlessly as possible. Forgive and forget. Echoing his sentiments in his second inaugural address:

With malice toward none, with charity for all

The South was beaten. Lee was surrounded. The question was what would Lee do? Surrender? Or disband and head into the hills. Carry out guerilla war? This was weighing on everyone’s mind. It terrified Lincoln. Grant and Sherman feared it, too. Even Lee. When Grant met Lee at Appomattox to discuss surrender, Grant offered very generous terms. In keeping with Lincoln’s wish for an easy peace. It had a very favorable affect on Lee. And his men. Lee surrendered. And once his war was over he dedicated his postwar life to making peace.

A similar surrender was negotiated between Sherman and General Joseph E. Johnston. Despite the assassination of Lincoln. Which happened after Lee’s surrender. Sherman waged hard war throughout the South. But he did not hate the South. War was war. And once the war was over, he followed Lincoln’s directive for an easy peace without hesitation. Eager to ‘let the South up easy’. And bring them back into the Union.

Lincoln’s assassination infuriated the North. They wanted vengeance. They wanted retribution. And they wanted to hang Lee. But Grant stepped in. Said he made the deal with Lee. And the deal would be honored. Or he’d resign. President Andrew Johnson relented. And Grant wrote Lee to assure him there would be no trial. His terms would be honored. And Lee reciprocated by dedicating his remaining life doing what he could to bring the South peacefully back into the Union.

Let us Judge not, that we be not Judged

The Civil War ended in 1865. It easily could have gone on. But thanks to Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Lee and Johnston, the war ended. And the peace began. The Southern people looked to Lee even in defeat. For he was like George Washington to them. Loved. And respected. Washington’s and Lee’s words and deeds carried great weight in their postwar years. And made peace possible.

But Lee surrendered to Lincoln as much as he did to Grant. And it was Lincoln that made the difference in this civil war. Made it different from other civil wars. For he could see beyond the conflict. To a higher plane. As he said in his second inaugural address.

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.

This is what you need for reconciliation. Do they have that in Libya? Let’s hope so. But history has shown this to rarely be the case. You need great people. A Washington. A Lincoln. A Grant. A Sherman. A Lee. A Johnston. Is this person in Libya? Or is Libya to descend into terror? Time will tell.

Breaking the Law like Dad Did

The growing controversy over President Obama’s illegal waging of war in Libya got much bigger last night with Charlie Savage’s New York Times scoop. He reveals that top administration lawyers — Attorney General Eric Holder, OLC Chief Caroline Krass, and DoD General Counsel Jeh Johnson — all told Obama that his latest, widely panned excuse for waging war without Congressional approval (that it does not rise to the level of “hostilities” under the War Powers Resolution (WPR)) was invalid and that such authorization was legally required after 60 days: itself a generous intepretation of the President’s war powers. But Obama rejected those views and (with the support of administration lawyers in lesser positions: his White House counsel and long-time political operative Robert Bauer and State Department “legal adviser” Harold Koh) publicly claimed that the WPR does not apply to Libya.

As Savage notes, it is, in particular, “extraordinarily rare” for a President “to override the legal conclusions of the Office of Legal Counsel and to act in a manner that is contrary to its advice…”

Kind of reminds me of someone. Someone else who acted against the advice of their own attorney general. Who was that? Hmmm. Let me think. It’s on the tip of my tongue. Not a popular guy. Oh yes. Now I remember.

[James] Comey explained that, in 2004, shortly after he became Deputy AG, he reviewed the NSA eavesdropping program Bush had ordered back in 2001 and concluded it was illegal. Other top administration lawyers — including Attorney General John Ashcroft and OLC Chief Jack Goldsmith — agreed with Comey, and told the White House they would no longer certify the program’s legality.

That’s right. It was George W. Bush. Gee, President Obama is getting more and more like Bush every day. He must hold Bush up as a mentor figure. Even a father figure. For it sure looks like he’s trying to impress him. By being like him. Like every son wants to be like their dad. What’s that line from that great father/son song? “He’d say “I’m gonna be like you Dad. You know I’m gonna be like you.”” From Cats in the Cradle. And Obama is trying to be like his surrogate dad. To do as good a job as Dad did. Military tribunals. Gitmo. Friends to business (albeit only the ones big enough to buy favors). Attacked some Muslim countries. Even breaking the law like Dad did. Looking for his approval. His love. And yearning for that ever elusive hug. From Poppa.

SENATOR HARRY REID (D-NV): Thank you very much for allowing me to be on the show.

MR. LEHRER: Well, first on the Libya military operation, do you believe the War Powers Act requires authorization of further action?

SEN. REID: The War Powers Act has no application to what’s going on in Libya.

MR. LEHRER: None?

SEN. REID: I don’t believe so. You know, we did an authorization for Afghanistan. We did one for Iraq. But we have no troops on the ground there, and this thing’s going to be over before you know it anyway, so I think it’s not necessary.

So, you see, there’s nothing to get your shorts into a bunch about. These guys know what they’re doing. And they know foreign policy. Geopolitics. And protecting American security interests. Like in Libya. We don’t know what those interests are yet. But the naysayers will learn in time. And we’ll see that our non-war in Libya was important. And necessary. Just like our Egyptian policy will prove one day to be important and necessary in protecting American security interests. By demanding that our friend and ally, a bulwark against radical Islamism, maintainer of peace and stability in a Middle East with the Jewish state of Israel, had to step down from power. Sure, he was corrupt and somewhat oppressive. But all rulers are in the Middle East. Life was far better in Egypt than in a lot of other Middle East nations. Especially for women. Christians. And Jews.

But the Obama administration said he had to go. It made no sense. And it doesn’t now. Yet. But I’m sure it will. For they must know something that the rest of us don’t. And that post-Mubarak Egypt will even be better. For women. Christians. And Jews.

Hail the Arab Spring

A group of Egyptians have announced their intent to establish a Nazi party with “a contemporary frame of reference,” an independent Egyptian news website said on Wednesday.

Al-Badeel, a leftist news portal, quoted founding member Emad Abdel Sattar as saying the party would bring together prominent figures from the Egyptian society. The party’s founding deputy is a former military official.

The party believes in vesting all powers in the president after selecting him or her carefully, Abdel Sattar said, adding that preparations are underway to choose the most competent person to represent the party.

Although Al-Masry Al-Youm could not verify the news reported by Al-Badeel, two Facebook pages have appeared recently under the title of “the Egyptian Nazi Party”.

The two pages attracted around 70 followers, who mostly posted questions about the party’s ideas and policies and requested details on how to join.

Hopefully not. Perhaps it’s just a fringe group. Like Hitler’s Nazis were in Germany. Until they started winning seats in the Reichstag. And Hindenburg had to reluctantly share power with them in a coalition government. Even appointed Hitler chancellor. Then Hindenburg died and Hitler became Führer und Reichskanzler. Increased his powers. Eventually making Germany a dictatorship. The rest is history. And not a good one.

The party has a one-year plan to develop Egypt, unlike the “marginalized liberal parties, which are like dead bodies,” he said.

A source from the proposed party told Al-Badeel the idea to start it came after some fundamentalist religious waves emerged, which, according to the source, created a state of chaos and led to the burning of churches, the destruction of shrines and assaults on unarmed civilians.

It was the radical Islamist elements of the Arab Spring that created the state of chaos. Not aspiring Nazis. They’re just looking to exploit the chaos. Perhaps this fringe group will just pass on into the dustbin of history. Sure, they share the anti-Semitic views of the big political party. The Muslim Brotherhood. And there are Middle East and Nazi Germany ties. Even Haj Amin al-Husseini met with Adolf Hitler. And discussed post-war Nazi ambitions outside the Nazi sphere (such as in the Middle East beyond the Caucasus). The only Nazi interference in Arab politics would be the continued genocide against the Jews. Which meshed well with al-Husseini’s vision of a Jewish-free Palestine. Despite this deep Nazi-Islamic history, I’m sure there is no danger with the rise of a fringe Nazi political party in Egypt. Because post-Mubarak Egypt has to be even better than Mubarak-Egypt. Otherwise, why would the Obama administration force Mubarak out?

Does the President need a Hug?

American foreign policy is confused at best. Intervention where there is no U.S. security interest. Undermining a friend and ally. While our enemies grow stronger. And a past evil is coming back to life. It begs the question is this on purpose? Is it incompetence? Or just a desperate cry for a hug from Poppa? George W. Bush?

Syrians not as worthy to Save as Libyans?

President Assad is killing innocent Syrians in the streets. In an effort to squelch their yearning for liberty. A contagion spreading through the Arab world. Tunisia. Egypt. Bahrain. Yemen. Libya. And now Syria. The international community is shocked at Assad’s brutality. And they issued a stern ‘you better stop doing that or we may tell you to stop a second time’. Whereas we demanded Mubarak to step down in Egypt. And bombed Libya. But in Syria all we got is a wag of the finger (see Obama’s Middle East Head Spin by Christopher Dickey posted 4/22/2011 on The Daily Beast).

From Washington’s vantage, every Friday is becoming Black Friday in the Middle East… This Friday, the shock came in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad runs one of the Middle East’s most repressive regimes. Across the country, protesters have grown ever more emboldened in recent weeks, and on Friday they poured into the streets by the tens of thousands to face the deadly fusillades of Assad’s security forces. More than 70 died. What did the White House have to say? From Air Force One: “We call on all sides to cease and desist from the use of violence.”

Pity the president didn’t add, “Don’t make me turn this car around.” For children know it’s serious when Dad threatens to turn that car around. Of course, Obama isn’t their dad. But he expects everyone to listen to him as if he were. And if that’s all we got going for our foreign policy, I say use it. Can’t hurt.

Then again, perhaps the president just doesn’t know what to do. He had no governing experience before running for president. He never had a real job. It’s rather baffling why so many championed the guy when he was in fact so utterly unqualified. But they did. And here he is. What was it that Rush Limbaugh called him? Man child? Pretty strong criticism. But is it true?

The drama—the tragedy—increasingly apparent at the White House is of a brilliant intellect who is nonetheless confounded by events, a strategist whose strategies are thwarted and who is left with almost no strategy at all, a persuasive politician and diplomat who gets others to crawl out on limbs, has them take big risks to break through to a new future, and then turns around and walks away from them when the political winds in the United States threaten to shift. It’s not enough to say the Cabinet is divided about what to do. Maybe the simplest and in many ways the most disturbing explanation for all the flailing is offered by veteran journalist and diplomat Leslie H. Gelb: “There is one man in this administration who debates himself.” President Obama.

A brilliant intellect who is not allowed to think brilliantly. Because of all this stuff going on in the world. This isn’t what he signed on for. He wanted to pontificate great things. Not govern. It’s not fair. He wanted to provide a laser-like focus on job creation. Build a stronger economy. Lower the sea levels. Instead he failed. Everywhere. As he is failing in his foreign policy. Or, rather, flailing. With a policy that is utterly incoherent.

At the Pentagon, which bears the brunt of much of this hesitation and vacillation, the mood is one of not-so-quiet desperation. Said one longtime friend of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates: “They think it [the Libyan operation] is just nuts. We are destroying our credibility with this situation, and there is really no answer to it.”

This is what happens when you have people who hate the military (i.e., liberals) use the military. The military has a constitutional role. To defend the United States. And protect vital national security interests. There is no constitutional clause that says, oh, and by the way, if a sovereign nation is being mean to her people we should commit U.S. military force without a clear objective or exit strategy. Just to feel good. But we can’t do that. For feeling good is a poor national strategy.

So Vice President Joe Biden has been left to handle the file, and he’s seemed none too happy about it. In an interview with the Financial Times, he argued that America’s real strategic interests were elsewhere, notably in helping to stabilize Egypt, while continuing to try to deal with Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North Korea. “We can’t do it all,” said Biden. NATO and the Europeans should do more, he insisted. But NATO is run by consensus, and when its most powerful member refuses to lead, hard decisions are hard to come by. France and Britain, for their part, have taken the initiative in Libya from the beginning and crossed a new threshold last week by announcing publicly that they would send military advisers into Libya to help the rebels organize. (One firm decision by the U.S.: It will not put its troops on the ground in Libya under any circumstances.)

Of course when we say ‘by consensus’ we mean ‘by the United States’. For any international effort is weak and ineffective without the full weight and force of the United States. It goes with being a superpower. But we have to pick and choose our fights. For even a superpower’s might is finite. There are national security interests (Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North Korea, for example). And there are non-national security interests. Such as Libya. And look where we are. The non-national security interest. Why?

The United States got involved “because of the worry that Gaddafi could destabilize the fledgling revolutions in both Tunisia and Egypt, with Egypt being central to the future of the region; and, second, to prevent a humanitarian disaster.” Then the clincher: “A third reason was that, while it was not a vital interest for us, our allies considered it a vital interest. And just as they have helped us in Afghanistan, we thought it was important, the president thought it was important, to help them in Libya.”

All right, let me see if I understand this right. Our allies joined us in the fight against international terrorism. Because international terrorism is international. It’s not only America at risk. Everyone is. So they helped us in Afghanistan. Where we’ve taken the lead role. Because it was in our national security interest. As it was in theirs. So, to thank them for joining the fight against international terrorism, we joined their fight to keep their supply of oil cheap and plentiful. Got it.

There is no question, for instance, that what happens in Syria is of vital interest to Israel, which is America’s strategic partner; nor is there any question that Assad is watching Gaddafi’s brutal tactics for precedents that will serve the Syrian’s own savage regime…

The fundamentally important American alliance with Saudi Arabia, which holds the keys to the global oil market, was shaken badly by what King Abdullah saw as Obama’s betrayal of Hosni Mubarak. Add to that the king’s bitter disappointment with American course corrections, and reversals, on the Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative. A European envoy who met with Abdullah in early March described him as “incandescent” with rage at Obama. Yet the Saudis backed the intervention in Libya—only to see the Americans fumble their leadership once again.

As for Iran, ever since the regime there confronted and crushed huge pro-democracy protests in 2009, nothing threatens it more than successful revolutions in the Arab world. And nothing gratifies Iran’s leaders more than to see the United States dithering about whether Arab democracy is in American interests. The ripple effects are felt even in East Asia, where a former U.S. ambassador says he’s heard that the North Koreans are telling the Chinese “if this is the best the Americans can do in Libya, we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Well, if Obama’s foreign policy strategy is to placate our enemies and infuriate our allies, he’s succeeded. If that wasn’t the strategy you’d then have to say those in charge of foreign policy are in over their heads. Or just incompetent.

Israel Looks at Syria and sees Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran

The world’s superpower can suffer bouts of incompetence. Because it takes time to bring down a superpower. We have the world’s largest economy. And the most powerful military. It takes a lot to disrupt our daily lives. So people don’t really fear the outside world. Except the occasional terrorist attack. And when something like that happens, people rally around the grownups. George W. Bush. Rudy Giuliani. But can you imagine if it was that way all of the time? To be under attack all the time? To be in a perpetual state of war? The Israelis can. They can’t afford the luxury of incompetence. There, the grownups are in charge. And they’re looking at all the developments in the Middle East a little differently than the Obama Administration (see Israel in a quandary over turmoil in Syria by Joel Greenberg posted 4/22/2011 on The Washington Post).

Syria has long been a bitter enemy of Israel’s, a key player in a regional alliance with Iran, a backer of the militant Hezbollah group in Lebanon and host to the political leadership of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. Yet it has also been a reliable foe, keeping its cease-fire lines with Israel quiet for decades through periods of war and confrontation in Lebanon and Gaza, and it has participated in U.S.-mediated peace talks.

A power shift in Damascus could alter those dynamics. But there is no clear sense in Israel of where that might lead, and there are a range of views here on the most preferable scenario. Experts speculate that Syria could dissolve into anarchy and civil war, Libya-style, or that a new authoritarian leadership could emerge, backed by the army and security forces, or a government dominated by the long-banned Muslim Brotherhood.

So Syria is a lot like Egypt in a sense. Peaceful and secular. The only difference is that they’re in tight with Iran. And Hezbollah and Hamas. Who have a penchant for killing Jews in Israel. And share a common objective with Iran. The destruction of Israel. But it could be worse. They’re not Islamist. They may be the client of an Islamist state (Iran). But they’re not Islamist.

“We prefer the devil we know,” said Ephraim Sneh, a former deputy defense minister, referring to Assad. “Although the Islamist forces are not the majority in the opposition, they are better organized and politically competent. And if we fantasize today that one day we’ll be able to take the secular regime in Syria outside the Iranian orbit, it may be more difficult, if not impossible, if the regime is an Islamist one.”

Dore Gold, a former foreign policy adviser to Netanyahu who heads the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, also emphasized the importance to Israel of monitoring “who the opposition is” in Syria to see whether “what looks like a sincere desire for freedom ends up being hijacked by the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“Israel views a lot of the current developments through the prism of the Iranian threat,” Gold added. “It would be unfortunate if Iran becomes the beneficiary of the developments across the Middle East. Iran could face a tremendous strategic loss if the Syrian regime falls and is replaced by a more Western-oriented leadership.”

How wise. If only Obama viewed developments through the prism of the Iranian threat. Perhaps he would have moved slower on Egypt. Until we knew who the opposition was. And whether the Muslim Brotherhood would hijack their democracy movement. Maybe we could have persuaded Mubarak to implement reforms. Like the Israelis are willing to do with Assad. Because sometimes the known devil is easier to deal with than the unknown one.

Still, a change of leadership in Syria or a weakened Assad regime could present opportunities that the United States and Israel should explore when the dust settles, according to Uri Sagi, a former chief of military intelligence who headed the Israeli negotiating team in talks with the Syrians from 1999 to 2000.

“I would suggest that the Americans take advantage of this crisis in order to change the balance here, namely to get the Syrians out of their intimate relationship with Hezbollah on the one hand and the Iranians on the other,” Sagi said.

The Syrian policy would probably be a little less complicated had it not followed the collapse of our ally in Egypt. Had the Syrian uprising happened first, there would have been more room for risk taking in Syria. We would have had the opportunity to shut down Hezbollah and Hamas. By severing the link to Iran via Syria. But Egypt happened first. And the great unknown now is the Muslim Brotherhood. They’re there. Lurking in the background. In Egypt. And in Syria.

Egypt is our ally. Syria is not. If we’re hesitating to act in Syria, then we should have hesitated in Egypt. This may prove to have been a big mistake. Forcing Mubarak out. We’re sending mixed messages to our allies and enemies. And losing all credibility by flailing about in Libya sure doesn’t help matters either.

Obama Looks at Syria and sees the 2012 Election

Yes, American foreign policy has not been President Obama’s shining moment. But I’m sure there’s a good reason for that. After all, he’s president. He must have a lot of things to worry about. Important things. More important than turmoil in the Middle East. I mean, how can that compare to his reelection campaign (see Obama’s 2012 Campaign: What’s the Strategy? by Daniel Stone posted 4/22/2011 on The Daily Beast)?

Staffers declined to disclose how many people are currently working for Obama in Chicago, and how fast the operation has been taking in money. But so far, campaign events hosted by the president himself have had high yields. At several fundraisers this week in San Francisco and Los Angeles, some supporters donated up $35,800 per couple, the maximum allowed by federal election laws.

Sure they’re shooting Syrians down in the street. But it’s not all bad news for Obama. His fund raising is doing very well.

Despite the clear advantage of having all the trappings of the presidency—Air Force One, a support staff of hundreds, guaranteed press coverage—Obama’s challenges may be new and unique. “Last time he was an underdog and outsider and really led a movement,” says Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Al Gore’s 2000 and John Kerry’s 2004 campaigns. “This time is different. He’s the president. His campaign will have to take advantage of all the things they did last time, coordinating and using technology. It’s hard not to be institutional.”

You can say many things about Obama. Criticize him for his disastrous economic policies. The lack of transparency in his administration. His abysmal foreign policy. But one thing for sure. He’s a man that his priorities in order. Reelection first. Everything else is a distant second.

Authorities in France have blocked trains from Italy in an attempt to stop north African migrants from entering the country.

Migrants landed on the Italian shores, got their temporary resident permits and hit the train stations. Now they’re traveling across Europe looking for a new, state-subsidized life. At least, this is France’s beef. Before they’ll let them cross their border they have to prove they can pay their own way. Because history has shown that migrants fleeing war-torn nations often can’t. While high domestic unemployment will make it difficult to absorb those who can into the workforce.

Italy and other European countries have been increasingly concerned about migration from north Africa following the political turmoil in the region.

Earlier this month, Italy and France agreed to launch sea and air patrols to try to prevent the influx of thousands of people from Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

Tunisia? Egypt? Those ‘democracy’ movements were rather peaceful. So it is puzzling that so many people are fleeing from these ‘democracy’ movements. We can understand Libya. We escalated that into civil war with our bombing campaign. And people typically flee from nations in civil war. But why Tunisia and Egypt?

“The experience of a Coptic governor has failed. There is no objection to his Coptic identity but the previous governor left a negative impression of Christian officials,” Youssef Ragab, a witness in Qena, told Reuters by telephone.

The Christians and the Muslim got along with Mubarak in office. There’s no reason for that to change now that Mubarak is out of office.

The protest took a more aggressive turn as some radical Salafi Islamists in the crowd demanded a Muslim official, saying “we want it Islamic.” Some even threatened to kill Mikhail if he came to his office.

Witnesses in the city said Egypt’s military, concerned that the demonstration would spark inter-faith violence, had moved to protect churches in the province.

The GCC Calls on the UN to take Action against Iran

Gulf Arab states on Sunday called on the international community and UN Security Council to “make flagrant Iranian interference and provocations” in Gulf affairs cease after unrest in Bahrain.

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, after a meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh, called in a statement for “necessary measures” against the Islamic republic to prevent it from sowing regional discord.

So it’s just not the West having problems with Iran. It would appear that they are trying to export their Iranian Shiite revolution everywhere.

The six-nation GCC called on “the international community and the Security Council to take the necessary measures to make flagrant Iranian interference and provocations aimed at sowing discord and destruction” among GCC states.

It said the GCC — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — “categorically rejects all foreign interference in its affairs… and invites the Iranian regime to stop its provocations.”

Will the international community step in to stop these Iranian provocations? Forget about a flood of migrants. What happens in these GCC countries is a huge national security interest. If Iranian influence spreads unchecked here, we’ll wish we only had a migration problem.

Little is said about Israel in Lands that Hate Israel

In all these Arab ‘democracy’ movements, there is a strange omission. You really don’t hear the anti-Israel rhetoric you normally hear in parts of this region. Which is a little strange. Israeli criticism has been quiet. A little too quiet. Which can only mean one thing. Something’s up (see Stratfor.com: The Arab Risings, Israel and Hamas by George Friedman posted 4/12/2011 on Bill O’Reilly).

We know of several leaders of the Egyptian rising, for example, who were close to Hamas yet deliberately chose to downplay their relations. They clearly were intensely anti-Israeli but didn’t want to make this a crucial issue. In the case of Egypt, they didn’t want to alienate the military or the West. They were sophisticated enough to take the matter step by step.

Hamas is a militant Palestinian Islamic movement. They want to destroy Israel. And they’re connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. Which also happens to be the largest organized opposition party in Egypt.

Egypt is key for Hamas. Linked to an anti-Israel, pro-Hamas Cairo, the Gaza Strip returns to its old status as a bayonet pointed at Tel Aviv. Certainly, it would be a base for operations and a significant alternative to Fatah. But a war would benefit Hamas more broadly. For example, Turkey’s view of Gaza has changed significantly since the 2010 flotilla incident in which Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish civilians on a ship headed for Gaza. Turkey’s relationship with Israel could be further weakened, and with Egypt and Turkey both becoming hostile to Israel, Hamas’ position would improve. If Hamas could cause Hezbollah to join the war from the north then Israel would be placed in a challenging military position perhaps with the United States, afraid of a complete breakdown of its regional alliance system, forcing Israel to accept an unfavorable settlement.

Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shiite Islamist organization. They hate Israel, too. And have close ties to Syria. And Iran.

For the United States and Europe, the merger of Islamists and democrats is an explosive combination. Apart, they do little. Together, they could genuinely destabilize the region and even further undermine the U.S. effort against jihadists. The United States and Europe want Israel to restrain itself but cannot restrain Hamas. Another war, therefore, is not out of the question—and in the end, the decision to launch one rests with Hamas.

During the Gulf War, we pleaded with Israel to just take whatever Saddam Hussein threw at them. And Israel showed incredible restraint after the Scud missile attacks began. Try as Hussein did, he could not provoke Israel into the conflict to break up the Arab coalition. And here we are again. With a foreign policy that depends on Israeli suffering. Will Hamas be able to provoke them into war? Or will they not take the bait and absorb their attacks? Will additional Israeli actions against Gaza further sour Turkey towards Israel? Will Egypt fall to a Hamas/Iran friendly Muslim Brotherhood? Will the Iranians continue to incite trouble in the GCC states? All BIG questions in terms of our national security interests. And the answers to them will have huge and lasting consequences.

So what is the US doing in all of this? Getting involved in the one county that isn’t even in the Big Picture. Libya.

The Real Enemy in the Middle East

There’s something going on here. And it ain’t protecting our national security interests. The best one can figure out is that we’re helping Europe keep their Libyan oil. Sure, Qaddafi is a bad guy. And, yes, he used deadly force on his people. But that happens every day somewhere in the world. Attacking Libya is like beating up a 90 year old ex-Nazi. Yeah, there may be some justice in it. But a 90 year old ex-Nazi isn’t a threat to world peace. But Iran is. And what are we doing about Iran? Nothing. Even though there are democracy movements there. But we just stand by and do nothing. Pity we didn’t do that in 1979.

The Shah of Iran was horrible. A monster. In fact, Iran was such a horrible place that girls could get a college education. Well, college students (i.e., young and educated) started a democracy movement. Just like those today. The Iranian Revolution. And they got rid of the Shah. But with the Shah went a lot of their liberties. Girls don’t go to college anymore in Iran. And regret the day he fell from power.

It’s just like that old saying. You don’t know what you have until you lose it. And that other old saying. I used to bitch about being poor and unemployed until I found out what it meant to be a second-class citizen without any rights.

Our allies in the Middle East know who the real enemy is. We should start listening to them more. And less to the people who sent us into Libya. Before it’s too late.

“The fate of The Post Co. has become inextricably linked with that of Kaplan, where revenue climbed to $2.9 billion in 2010, 61 percent of The Post Co.’s total,” the article detailed; “the company is more dependent than ever on a single business,’ [CEO Donald] Graham wrote in last year’s annual report, adding that the newspaper had never accounted for as large a share of overall company revenue as Kaplan does today.”

And that single business is an educational one. A network of for-profit universities aimed at those who can’t afford a traditional college education. These ‘poor’ people often pay for this education with federal loans. And, of course, education is highly regulated by the federal government. So this puts this The Post Co. into a bit of a sticky wicket.

Put another way, the company that owns The Washington Post is almost entirely at the mercy of the Federal Government and the Obama administration — the entities which its newspaper ostensibly checks and holds accountable.

Which is another way of saying there is a conflict of interest. Which may taint their objectivity. At times. Not necessarily. But possibly. Which may explain the dominance of FOX NEWS. Who may be beholden to corporate interests, too. But it is clear that they are not beholden to the Obama Administration. No, the current administration doesn’t much care for FOX. Which can’t help but to lend an air of objectivity.

Beyond being reliant on federal money and not alienating federal regulators, the Post Co. desperately needs favorable treatment from members of Congress, and has been willing to use its newspaper to obtain it…

The Post is hardly alone among major media outlets in being owned by an entity which relies on the Federal Government for its continued profitability. NBC News and MSNBC were long owned by GE, and now by Comcast, both of which desperately need good relations with government officials for their profits. The same is true of CBS (owned by Viacom), ABC (owned by Disney), and CNN (owned by TimeWarner). For each of these large corporations, alienating federal government officials is about the worst possible move it could make — something of which all of its employees, including its media division employees, are well aware.

Of course, they left off two other entities that depend on not alienating the federal government. PBS. And NPR. They have no corporate middlemen. They get their funding directly from the federal government. So they’ll be even more careful not to bite the hand that’s feeding them.

It would appear that journalism somehow went awry. They will still criticize corporate fat cats. Just not the corporate fat cats that sign their checks. Or the government that signs the corporate fat cats’ checks.

The whole point of the First Amendment’s free press guarantee is that adversarial journalism is possible only if journalists are independent of political power. Yet the U.S. now has exactly the opposite dynamic: most major media outlets are owned by corporations that are anything but independent of government: they are quite dependent upon political officials for their profit in countless ways. We have anything but an independent press, which is another way of saying we have anything but a free press.

It is interesting that many attack the Republicans for being in the hip pocket of the big corporations. And some of their loudest critics are themselves in the hip pocket of big corporations. But claims of media bias are laughed off by those in the hip pocket of big corporations. Meanwhile, they attack FOX NEWS for not being a legitimate news organization. When many of these attackers are themselves far from legitimate. So are these people inherently immoral? Amoral? Or are they just human?

Currying favor with political officials is how they secure scoops, leaks and access. Because media stars are now as wealthy and celebrated as the politically powerful whom they cover, they identify on socioeconomic and cultural grounds with these political officials; media stars are far more integrated into the halls of political power than they are outside of them.

They’re just human. Craving attention. Fame. Wealth. The good life. And more fame. They all want to be Walter Cronkite. To become a legend. By achieving greatness just for reporting the greatness of others. That’s why reality television is so successful. People watch rank amateurs achieve celebrity without any real talent. And they say, hey, that could be me. And so it is with many of today’s journalists.

FOX NEWS Dares to say the King Isn’t Wearing any Clothes

So how biased is today’s media? Perhaps not that biased. Here’s a newspaper story pretty critical of President Obama (see O meets the fog of war posted 4/10/2011 on New York Post).

Gen. Carter Ham, who commanded US military forces in Libya until control of the operation was handed over to NATO, told a Senate hearing Thursday that “there might be some consideration” of sending US ground troops to Libya to aid the anti-Khadafy rebels.

But President Obama said there would be no boots on the ground. That we were only there on a humanitarian mission to protect Libyan civilians. That we would be in and out in days, not weeks. That there would be no mission-creep. But this sounds like mission-creep. A lot like in Vietnam. We were only advisors at first. To help an outmatched military force. Then the mission crept. And the next thing we knew we had hundreds of thousands of boots on the ground. Could history be repeating?

The point being that situations, both on the ground and in the air, tend to change in unpredictable ways.

But there’s no indication that President Obama and his defense team understand it — which probably explains why he doesn’t hesitate before making sweeping promises about the length and nature of America’s military commitments.

Perhaps. While another Democrat president bungles us into another long-term military commitment in a land far from home that never attacked us.

Now that’s a pretty critical, objective news report on the Obama administration. Perhaps the news media can maintain objectivity in the face of their corporate overlords dependent on the federal government for their profits. Wait a tic. The New York Post? Rupert Murdoch owns this, doesn’t he? The same Rupert Murdoch who owns FOX NEWS? Why, yes. He does. No wonder the New York Post isn’t afraid to say the king isn’t wearing any clothes. Their income isn’t dependent on pleasing the king.

I guess a good rule of thumb for objective journalism is this. Does Rupert Murdoch own the media outlet? If so, it’s not an Obama administration toady. And most likely objective.

A Detailed and Objective Mea Culpa

If you want to read more about the problems besetting The Washington Post thanks to its Kaplan division you can read a pretty detailed and objective accounting of it in The Washington Post (see The trials of Kaplan Higher Ed and the education of The Washington Post Co. by Steven Mufson and Jia Lynn Yang posted 4/9/2011 on The Washington Post). It’s a fascinating read. And quite the mea culpa.

Yes, they may be biased. But they don’t like the position they’re in. And that says something about the organization. Besides, Charles Krauthammer is a columnist over there. Not exactly a friend of the Obama administration. And any paper that has Krauthammer as a columnist is all right by me.

Men and Women join the Military to Guard this county and our Way of Life

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. In case you don’t recognize these lines they’re from Patton. In that opening speechGeorge C. Scott gives in front of that giant American flag. This is the sad reality of war. People die. And it’s not only the bad guys. Often they’re our teenagers. Our young men and women. Who answer the call of duty. Knowing they may die. For it’s in the job description. And in the Code of the U.S. Fighting Force:

I am an American fighting in the forces which guard my country and our way of life. I am prepared to give my life in their defense.

That’s why people join the military. To risk their life guarding this county. And our way of life. This is the contract they signed on to. Not humanitarian missions guarding other people and their way of life. It’s one thing making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. But it’s a whole other thing making the ultimate sacrifice just so another people can have a better life. While your family is left with only memories. And a flag that draped a coffin.

The Many Roads to War

Vietnam was yet another chapter in the Cold War to block Soviet Expansion. Before Vietnam we were pretty successful. We checked them in Berlin. Greece. Turkey. Iran. Failed in China. Held the line on the Korean peninsula. In Cuba (where we prevented the Soviets from placing their nuclear weapons there). And tried again in South Vietnam. And failed. JFK was a Cold War warrior. That’s why he went into Vietnam. To check Soviet Expansion. Our enemy in the Cold War. Who was always trying to undermine our country and way of life. People may not remember this, but Vietnam was a popular war before it was unpopular. Because we lived in fear of the Soviet Union. And their mushroom cloud.

The Iraq War is a little more complicated. Hussein had repeatedly violated the terms of the ceasefire ending the Gulf War. He was a threat to the region. And the Saudis were very reluctant to shut down the terrorist financing in Saudi Arabia lest the Wahhabi rise up and overthrow their kingdom. Long story short, our Iraqi invasion forced their hand. Because they feared Iranian hegemony in the Middle East more than the Wahhabi. Say what you want about the Saudis, but they walk a fine line between helping us and maintaining Arab peace. All the while not playing politics with their oil. You can’t really ask for more in a friend and ally.

Now Libya? Whatever happened in Libya would not have changed life in America. It was not a national security interest. It was to the Europeans who bought Libyan oil. And those nations that may face an influx of refugees hitting their shores. But there was no U.S. interest for Americans to die for. It’s a purely humanitarian mission. Sure, the slaughter of innocents is bad. And we have a big and powerful military. But the men and women who sign up to serve pledge to give their life to guard this county. And our way of life. Not theirs. It’s a heavy burden to send men and women into harm’s way. Especially when some may make that ultimate sacrifice. But when families understand why their loved ones died, they can find some solace that at least their loss served a higher purpose. But that ‘why’ in Libya is not going to assuage much of their grief. Should there be grief.

So why Libya? It doesn’t make any sense from a national security standpoint. From a military standpoint. A diplomatic standpoint. It’s very confusing. Why, we don’t even know who the people are that we’re helping. It would appear that emotion, not logic, got us into Libya.

This isn’t just about numbers, though. Women bring distinctive life experiences to politics, and research shows that female officeholders change both the policy agenda and the governing process. Whether the issue is equal access to credit (Bella Abzug) or education (Patsy Mink), family and medical leave (Marge Roukema), or inclusion of women in medical research (Pat Schroeder and Olympia Snowe), female lawmakers have long been recognized as powerful voices on behalf of women, children and families…

Eager for more female candidates, including some who don’t fit the traditional patterns, we’re working on the 2012 Project — a national, nonpartisan CAWP campaign in collaboration with California political strategist Mary Hughes to increase the number of women in federal and state legislative offices. Our goal is to identify and engage accomplished women 45 and older to run for office, women who already have established careers and reduced family responsibilities. We are especially seeking women from fields and industries underrepresented in elective offices, including finance, science, technology, energy and health care.

So they’re trying to find women who also happen to have these qualities to serve in government. It would seem better to find people with these qualities who happen to be women. Because it sounds like we’re trying to find the best qualified women. Instead of the best qualified. I wonder what Margaret Thatcher thinks of this. I mean, she was a great leader. Not just the best woman they could find to be prime minister.

A Woman with “Distinctive Life Experiences” advises Obama to go to War in Libya

There are some women already in politics. One in particular has quite a powerful position in the Obama administration. A confidant and adviser to the president. Well learned and scholarly. Wrote a book. Which won her a Pulitzer Prize. So she’s quite accomplished. And people should fear her abroad. Because she likes to send the military on lethal humanitarian missions. And she’s going places (see Samantha Power to be the next Secretary of State? by Cathy Hayes posted 4/2/2011 on IrishCentral).

A flattering New York Times profile has increased speculation that Samantha Power, the Dublin-born aide to President Obama, could be his next Secretary of State or National Security Adviser.

She has been the main architect, along with Hillary Clinton, of the Libya policy and has an increasing influence in the White House inner circle.

…she defended the administration’s decision in establishing a no-fly zone, adding failure to do so would have been “extremely chilling, deadly and indeed a stain on our collective conscience.”

Since she began her career working as a war correspondant in Bosnia at the tender age of 22, Power has believed that nations have a moral obligation to prevent genocide. She can bring life to these ideals from her position of the National Security Council…

Some of her critics say that she could be pushing the U.S. into another Iraq. The conservative blog American Thinker says that Obama has “outsourced foreign policy” to the Dublin woman. She has also drawn the ire of the Israeli lobby for her pro-Palestinian positions.

Another Iraq? I think another Vietnam may be more appropriate. Because of the mission creep (from advisors to airpower to boots on the ground). And the affect on the Johnson‘s presidency. Made him a one-term president. Unpopular wars can do that. Will the Libyan War stay popular? If so perhaps it can be another Iraq. If not? Hello Vietnam.

This is the problem of getting women into politics because they are women. They bring those “distinctive life experiences to politics.” Emotions then cloud prudent deliberation. For it would have been better if someone else had the president’s ear regarding Libya. Someone who said, yes, the situation in Libya is bad. But we can’t send young Americans on lethal humanitarian missions where ever there is horrible suffering and crimes against humanity. Because there is horrible suffering and crimes against humanity everywhere. We can’t pick and choose. Play God. Say these people are worthy of living. While these people should die. And we can’t encourage others to rise up because they think we will intervene in their country, too. We just don’t have the resources. And we can’t ask our brave men and women to do things they didn’t contract for when they joined the military. Dying for someone else’s country and way of life.

Instead, it was the softer side of the Obama administration that cringed at the thought of people suffering. And these women did not hesitate to put our men and women at risk to soothe their anguished souls. And why not? These leftist intellectuals hate the military (the Ivy League only recently -and reluctantly- let ROTC back on their campuses with the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, no doubt conflicting them. They enjoyed all the turmoil this is causing in the military. But now they can’t use that excuse anymore to keep these people off of their campuses). They don’t care if these people die. You want to play war? Okay. Go play war in Libya. Kill for us. Be useful for the first time in your miserable lives.

The War to end Human Suffering

Now women in power is not necessarily bad. Margaret Thatcher was a great leader. I wish there were more of her to go around. It’s getting women in power just because they’re women that is bad. Especially when they bring those “distinctive life experiences.” We can’t afford ‘nurturing mother’ types running our foreign policy. Nurturers want to help. Because they can’t bear to see suffering. We need people who can see beyond the suffering. Who can get past their emotions.

The military is not a cold impersonal thing. It’s our sons and daughters. Our brothers and sisters. Our fathers and mothers. Our husbands and wives. These are people. Real people. And we need to treat them as the precious resources they are. Yes, some may die completing a mission. So it is our duty to them to make sure they do not die in vain. That we never ask them to make the supreme sacrifice just to make someone feel better. Yes, suffering is bad. But suffering is not a national security interest. Oil is. Stability in the Middle East is. Sealing our southern border is. Fighting al Qaeda is. But suffering in Libya, the Ivory Coast, North Korea, (insert a country where there is suffering here), etc., is not.

Suffering is bad. But no reason to send Americans to die in war. We cannot declare war on human suffering. Because that’s a war that we can never win. Like our war on drugs. It requires changing human nature. And until we can do that there will always be suffering. And people using drugs. We have a much better chance stopping terrorism.

A war on terror? Now there’s a war worth fighting. Because winning that war is in our national security interest.

Construction Spending down despite all those Shovel-Ready Projects

February construction spending fell 1.4% to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of $760.6 billion, the lowest level in more than 11 years, the Commerce Department said Friday. January spending was revised lower to a decline of 1.8% from a previous estimate of a 0.7% fall. Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a 0.1% rise.

Construction is the last to enter recession. And it’s the last to emerge from recession. Because it takes a long time to go from design to completion. But after all those shovel-ready projects bought and paid for by the stimulus bill back in 2009, construction should not be the worse it has been in 11 years. That means the economy is still a mess. And it may very well get messier.

Richmond Federal Reserve President Jeffrey Lacker told CNBC Friday that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the central bank raised interest rates before the end of the year…

He said his greater concern is rising inflation and controlling it in the next nine months “will be critical for us.”

Jimmy Carter must be smiling. Many say he was the worst president. Mainly because of the stagflation of the 1970s. High unemployment and high inflation. Normally, you don’t get the two together unless you really managed to make a mess of the economy. And now it looks like Obama may go all Jimmy Carter on us. We still have record unemployment. And the Fed, while they’re still planning to go ahead with more quantitative easing in June:

At its last meeting, the Fed voted unanimously to continue as planned with its $600 billion bond purchase program, designed to lower interest rates and stimulate growth, which is scheduled to end in June.

is already talking about battling the inflation their previous actions have given us. Which they did in a futile attempt to counter Obama’s job-killing fiscal policies. No doubt Carter is grateful he has lived to see this day. When another president has ruined the economy greater than he did.

TARP bails out Libyan Owned Bank

Arab Banking Corp., the lender part- owned by the Central Bank of Libya, used a New York branch to get 73 loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve in the 18 months after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed.

The bank, then 29 percent-owned by the Libyan state, had aggregate borrowings in that period of $35 billion — while the largest single loan amount outstanding was $1.2 billion in July 2009, according to Fed data released yesterday. In October 2008, when lending to financial institutions by the central bank’s so- called discount window peaked at $111 billion, Arab Banking took repeated loans totaling more than $2 billion…

Arab Banking reported a loss of $880 million in 2008 as it took a $1.1 billion charge tied to structured investment vehicles and derivative products known as collateralized debt obligations. Arab Banking recovered during the next two years, posting profits totaling $265 million.

So, Arab Banking Corp., part-owned by the Central Bank of Libya, the country we’re currently bombing now to ‘encourage’ regime change, was ‘bailed out’ in our TARP program. That hurts in so many ways. Our tax dollars that our Congress authorized to purchase trouble assets (i.e., all those Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac subprime mortgages) not only bailed out Obama’s friends on Wall Street, they bailed out foreign banks. Even helped a Libyan dictator. Who we’re now trying to ‘accidentally’ kill. I mean, you can’t make this stuff up. Meanwhile, Carter looks like a better president with each day that passes by. Who’d’ve thunk it?

Liberal Base says Obama is Worse than George W. Bush

And speaking of that Libyan…thing…that’s not a war but has all the bombing and killing of a war…how’s that going? Not so good with the president’s base (see Liberals outraged by Libya intervention posted 1/1/2011 on UPI).

Liberal Democrats, key to Barack Obama’s election as U.S. president, are some of the loudest critics on his strategy on Libya, a review of reaction indicates…

“In two years we have moved from President [George W.] Bush’s doctrine of preventive war to President Obama’s assertion of the right to go to war without even the pretext of a threat to our nation,” Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, an anti-war liberal, said Thursday during a House floor speech. “This is a clear and arrogant violation of our Constitution. Even a war launched for humanitarian reasons is still a war — and only Congress can declare war.”

Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said Congress and the White House have argued for years over the division of power in wartime, but “the Constitution grants sole authority to the Congress to commit the nation to battle in the first instance.”

That sounds like they’re saying that Obama is worse than George W. Bush. Wow. At least Bush had the pretext of weapons of mass destruction. What’s Obama got? Well, had he not acted, there may have been another civil war in the world. As bad as that is, it isn’t an imminent risk to American security. Which means the president did not have the Constitutional authority to do what he did. Unlike George W. Bush in Iraq.

The Military doesn’t want Obama’s Libyan War

So he’s losing his liberal base. But he’s still got the military establishment, doesn’t he? As the Left well knows, they don’t care about right or wrong. They just like to kill people and blow things up. Right? Not exactly. You see, actually knowing a thing or two about war, they are not all that eager to go to war (see U.S. Military Not Happy Over Libya by Leslie H. Gelb posted 1/31/2011 on The Daily Beast).

Pentagon civilian leaders and the military brass see nothing but trouble looming as the Obama administration takes one step after another into the Libyan morass. The next step appears to be arming the Libyan rebels, a move that would inevitably entail pressures to send U.S. trainers and even more potent arms—and a move that Defense Secretary Robert Gates flat-out rejected in testimony before Congress on Thursday. “What the opposition needs as much as anything right now is some training, some command and control, and some organization,” Gates said. As for providing weapons, that is “not a unique capability for the United States, and as far as I’m concerned, somebody else can do that.”

Libyan morass? Wow. That’s some heavy criticism. That’s the kind of language they used back in the day of the Vietnam War. Which was an unwinnable morass. Interesting, too, that liberal presidents with aggressive domestic agendas created both of these morasses. But can Obama win his war? Even though LBJ couldn’t win his? Or will Obama follow LBJ’s example and not seek nor accept his party’s nomination for a second term as president? Guess time will tell.

U.S. aircraft took the lead in junking a good chunk of the Libyan Air Force and launched devastating attacks against Libyan tanks, artillery, and other ground forces. Despite the severity of these attacks, Libyan forces survived, regained the offensive, and are now moving back toward rebel strongholds in eastern Libya. And the expectation of U.S. intelligence is that without having to face U.S. air power, Gaddafi’s troops will build further momentum. So, U.S. military officials haven’t stopped worrying about being dragged yet again into the air war.

You know, this is a lot like the Vietnam War. Every time we pulled back the enemy advanced. Then we’d pound them back with our superior airpower. Until Congress stopped paying for that superior airpower. And then you know what happened? No? Not familiar with our actions to protect South Vietnam? Okay. Look on a current map for South Vietnam to find out how that turned out. But don’ spend too much time looking for it. Because it’s not there anymore.

The rebels won’t be able to use most arms, even relatively simply ones like anti-tank rockets and rifles, without extensive training…

Remember, underneath everything happening now are the two driving goals that President Obama set: to protect populations and to oust Colonel Gaddafi. In all likelihood, U.S. coalition partners cannot achieve these goals without U.S. jets resuming combat missions. Even with more U.S. air power, it probably won’t be possible to stop Gaddafi without using some coalition ground forces. So, pressures to do more and more will continue to lurk. All the Pentagon can do, then, is to raise tough questions (Who are those rebels we’re determined to help, could they be Muslim extremists?) to diffuse pressures on the U.S. military to do more.

If you ever wondered how Vietnam happened, here’s a good teachable moment. JFK sent in military advisors to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). These were the ‘good guys’ in South Vietnam. But when the very well trained and well supported North Vietnamese Army (NVA) threw them back we needed more than advisors. We started supporting the ARVN. Then the ARVN started supporting us as we took over more and more of the war. Next thing we knew hundreds of thousands of U.S. ground troops were fighting it out in the jungles of Vietnam. And the rest is history.

Barack Obama makes Jimmy Carter look Good

The last month or so hasn’t been too good for our president. The economy is still mired in recession. Inflation is about to join those high unemployment numbers to give us some good old-fashioned Jimmy Carter misery. Our taxpayer TARP money found its way to Libya. Instead of buying our troubled assets. The Liberal base is abandoning him. The Libyan war is less Constitutional than Bush’s Iraq War. And appears about as winnable as the Vietnam War.